Linux Audio - time for serious attention

Submitted by kattekrab on Sun, 19/04/2009 - 11:00

Matt Bottrell posted about the sad state of audio on linux. Now - I can't even pretend to understand all the whys and wherefores, and have none of the necessary skills to fix it, let alone post constructive criticism about where to look at sorting out the issues - but I can certainly agree it's broken. Perhaps I can add a simple voice of frustration from a long time linux user? And also say that I will cheer heartily from the sidelines if some solution can be found for this mess, and buy beverages for the hackers responsible should I bump into them at linux.conf.au next year in Wellington, NZ

My ubuntu desktop suffers from strange audio symptoms, sometimes stopping pulseaudio does the trick, sometimes not.  Sometimes a reboot is all I can do to stop the machine hissing after some failed attempt to 'do' audio.   Sometimes audio will work in one app, but not in another. It's beyond my knowledge how to even start troubleshooting and documenting the problem.  

We really need this to 'just work'. If I wasn't the passionate advocate of software freedom that I am, I could consider going back to MacOS (if only they supported OGG!) If I needed audio regularly for professional stuff I couldn't put up with the situation - so I wonder how much this is holding others back?